Featured Author: Paty Lager

About the book

On the eve of the biggest art event at Huckleberry Mountain Resort, potter Shandra Higheagle finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. She’s ruled out as a suspect, but now it’s up to her to prove the friend she witnessed fleeing the scene was just as innocent. With help from her recently deceased Nez Perce grandmother, Shandra becomes more confused than ever but just as determined to discover the truth.

Detective Ryan Greer prides himself on solving crimes and refuses to ignore a single clue, including Shandra Higheagle’s visions. While Shandra is hesitant to trust her dreams, Ryan believes in them and believes in her.

Can the pair uncover enough clues for Ryan to make an arrest before one of them becomes the next victim?

Interview with Paty Lager

Paty, what’s the story behind the title of your book?
If I tell you the story behind the title it gives away part of the mystery. ;) But I can tell you the story behind the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series. I’ve wanted to write a mystery series for many years. When my brother, a bronze sculptor, told me a fascinating fact about a 300 pound bronze statue that would make a great weapon in a mystery novel, I started “stewing and brewing” to come up with the right protagonist and story. I needed something to do with the art world—an artist. I needed something to stay true to my tagline: Tales of romance and intrigue starring cowboys and Indians—Shandra Higheagle with a Native American background, and the crime that uses the 300 pound statue. That is how this book and the series came to me.

Tell us about your series. Is this book a standalone, or do readers need to read the series in order?
Double Duplicity is the first book of the Shandra Higheagle mystery series. I try to write the books so they could be standalone but there are relationships and events that run through several books in the series that, while they don’t distract, would be better understood if the books are read in order.

Where’s home for you?
My home is in eastern Oregon on 280 acres. My husband and I raise alfalfa hay and enjoy the wide open spaces of the high desert. We just moved here permanently and recently finished building our house. We are believers in doing things ourselves.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Wallowa County. It is a sparsely populated county in the northeast corner of Oregon. It is the area where the Nez Perce band led by Chief Joseph wintered and summered before they were banned from the area.

If you had an extra $100 a week to spend on yourself, what would you buy?
I’d save it up for a nice pair of Lucchese cowboy boots.  Like my character Shandra Higheagle, I love fancy cowboy boots.


What’s the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made?
The money went to a good cause because it was an online auction for Juvenile Diabetes, but I spent $75 on a ¾ inch by ¾ inch Zuni pig. I collect interesting pigs.

What is the most daring thing you've done?

I drove in a powder puff demolition derby, and I’ve skinny-dipped.


What makes you bored?

I am never bored. That’s the good thing about being a writer. There is never any time to be bored. If I’m sitting in the pickup waiting for my hubby, I can always run the next scenes for a book over in my head.

What choices in life would you like to have a redo on?
While I’ve always been miffed that my dad wouldn’t let me go to college for an arts degree, I’m happy with where my life has taken me.

Do you have another job outside of writing?
My job outside of writing is helping my husband farm. I drive the swather (hay cutting machine), back hoe/loader, and semi-truck when it’s hay season. The off season, I help with repairs.

How did you meet your spouse? Was it love at first site?
I don’t think it was love, but it was strong attraction. I was talked into going to an under-21 club with a co-worker. I was nineteen. All the guys there were pimply-faced sixteen-year-olds. I was feeling out of place when a guy who looked my age walked in. I studied him a few minutes then boldly walked over and asked him to dance. I’d never been that forward before, but I wanted someone to talk with who was my age. We ended up dancing and talking all evening. We discovered we had several things in common. He drove me home in an old battered pickup truck that smelled like cow. When he got too handsie, I asked him to leave. I figured he wouldn’t be back. Two nights later there was a knock on my door and there he stood. He told me if I had let him go farther that night he wouldn’t have been back. I was the kind of girl he wanted for a wife. We married two years later and have been married for 36 years.

That's awesome. Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
There is a bit of someone I’ve met in my life in my main and secondary characters. It’s the only way characters can be written is by using facsimiles of people a writer has seen or knows in their life. It’s how the characters become real.


What book are you currently reading and in what format (e-book/paperback/hardcover)?
I’m reading The Handless Maiden by Dorothy Black Crow. It’s in paperback format.


Do you have a routine for writing?
On a routine day (no haying - staying home), I sit down at the computer by no later than 8 o’clock in the morning. I try to get all my emails and business done by ten. Then I write until noon. Have lunch, come back, and write until four.  A good day is 4-5,000 words.

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?
I can write anywhere. With or without noise. At home I usually have music playing. Depending on the genre I’m writing, I have certain playlists I use. I prefer to write during the day. By nighttime I’m too tired to think straight.

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?
The best compliment I’ve received is: “Your books keep me up all night.”

Why did you decide to self-publish?
I started my writing career with a small press. It was very hands-on and taught me a lot about putting a quality book out.  When other authors who had gone self-published suggested I should do it, I decided I could take on the challenge. I liked the idea of being able to hand select my covers, make my own deadlines and publishing dates.

Are you happy with your decision to self-publish? 
Yes. I write stories that can’t be categorized easily which makes agents and editors scratch their heads and say, I don’t know where we’d place this book in a book store. By self-publishing I can get my stories out to the readers without the keepers of the gates holding me back.

If you self-published, what steps to publication did you personally do, and what did you hire someone to do? Is there anyone you’d recommend for a particular service?
I have critique partners I believe in. When they say a story needs this or that, I dissect the story more and make the changes. I have a cover artist who does a great job. And I have an grammar editor and proof-reader. I do all the formatting for the ebooks and print books.

What are you working on now?
Right now I’m working on final edits for the third Shandra Higheagle mystery book, Deadly Aim: The dead body of an illicit neighbor and an old necklace send potter Shandra Higheagle on a chase to find a murderer. Visions from her dead grandmother reveals Shandra is on the right path, but the woods are full of obstacles — deadly ones.

Detective Ryan Greer believes Shandra’s dreams will help solve the mystery, but he also knows the curious potter could get herself killed. He’s determined that won’t happen.

Until he’s blind-sided. Are Shandra’s powers strong enough to save them both, or will the murderer strike again?

About the author

Award-winning author Paty Jager and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. On her road to publication she wrote freelance articles for two local newspapers and enjoyed her job with the County Extension service as a 4-H Program Assistant. Raising hay and cattle, riding horses, and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Her penchant for research takes her on side trips that eventually turn into yet another story.


Connect with Paty:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads 

Featured Author: Jerold Last

About the book

The sixth book in the popular Roger and Suzanne mystery series finds Roger and Bruce hired to go undercover impersonating the owner and handler of a Champion German Shorthaired Pointer named Juliet to investigate certain irregularities that might be occurring at dog shows in California. To complicate this case the bodies of dead judges start popping up and Suzanne picks up a mysterious stalker sending her most unwelcome gifts. Throw in drug cartels and corrupt cops and it sounds like a typical job for our detective couple.

The Deadly Dog Show can be read as a stand-alone novel.

Guest Post by Jerold Last

A NOVEL IDEA

My first novel in the Roger and Suzanne South American mystery series, The Ambivalent Corpse, is set mainly in Montevideo, Uruguay. The premise is that our heroes find parts of a dismembered corpse on a rocky stretch of beach in Montevideo, apportioned equally between the Memorial to a German cruiser sunk in World War II and the Memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust. Because of the murder victim’s strategic location shared between two antithetical monuments, the Uruguayan press names her “The Ambivalent Corpse.”

I got the original idea for this book’s title and the basic premise for the beginning of the plot in Montevideo in 1999 when my wife and I took a walk along the Ramblas, a walking path along the beaches and parks that line the edge of the city along the Rio de la Plata River, the border between Uruguay and Argentina. When we saw that strange juxtaposition of the two monuments it immediately got me thinking something like “one day, when I write a book, this has to go in it!”  As you can tell from the dates, it took a while for me to find the time to sit down and start writing the book, which was eventually completed and published in the autumn of 2011. I remembered the Graf Spee Memorial, which was a favorite spot for snapshot taking among the university students I knew from my first stretch of living in Montevideo in 1982, but I didn't remember the Holocaust Memorial from my earlier visit. Perhaps this shouldn't be too surprising since the Holocaust Memorial was first dedicated in 1995.

The novel's story sort of took over and wrote itself after the third chapter in the first draft became the first chapter in subsequent versions. Because of this change, the action began immediately in the new Chapter 1 thanks to the suggestion of my youngest son Michael, who I asked for comments. After I recovered from his criticisms, it was clear that he was correct. Much of the back-story and details came later, during editing of the book and after some friends read the later drafts and gave me helpful feedback. Those original first two chapters haven’t totally gone to waste. Part of one of those first two chapters, with a bit of revision, found its way into a subsequent book in the series; see if you can guess which one.  As we say in California, recycle, reuse, revise, and repeat.

Thus far the settings for four of my novels and two of the novellas in the Roger and Suzanne series have been in South America, especially Uruguay and Argentina, both places my wife and I lived during a sabbatical I took several years ago. I’ve been back to Montevideo and Salta, Argentina, site of my novella, The Empanada Affair (available in the anthology entitled Five Quickies for Roger and Suzanne), several times since then for collaborative research and teaching programs there, so I know the locales, the food, and the people I use for the books very well. My second novel in the series, The Surreal Killer is set in Chile and Peru. The third novel, The Matador Murders, is set in Montevideo and Santiago, Chile, all places I have spent time in since we lived in Montevideo and Salta in 1999 thanks to the various scientific collaborations that began during that sabbatical leave. Another novella, The Body in the Bed, set in Montevideo was also published at about this point in the sequence. We return to South America for my fifth novel, The Origin of Murder, which takes the reader on a murderous cruise through Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. Between Montevideo and The Galapagos, Roger and Suzanne got to stay home in California for The Deadly Dog Show.

I try to write books that are fast moving and entertain the reader while introducing them to an exotic region that is a long way from home for most English speakers. Montevideo, Salta, Machu Picchu, the Galapagos Islands, and Iguazu Falls are characters in these books, and the books will have succeeded for me if readers say that they’d like to visit these places because they seem so vivid and real. I believe my strengths as an author are in inventing interesting plots, paying attention to story details, and trying to entertain the reader.  None of these books are true cozies. I call them “tweeners.” My characters are tougher and live in a darker world than most cozy novels feature, and there are scenes of violence in the books. But, I adhere to the cozy conventions of no cussing and no gratuitous sex scenes.

I’d love to see you pick up a copy of one (or more!) of my novels, read and enjoy it, recommend it to your friends, and write a good honest review that you publish on the Amazon book page where you purchased the book. 

About the author

The author is a Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of California’s Medical School at Davis, near Sacramento in Northern California. Jerry writes mystery stories that follow the cozy conventions of no graphic sex and no cussing but feature tougher protagonists and darker worlds than most cozies. Jerry knows the real world of dog shows from his own experience and that of his wife, Elaine, who breeds and shows prize-winning German Shorthair Pointer dogs. The cover photo is the author’s own dog Jolie (Grand Champion V. D. Nacht’s Classic Beaujolais, SH). Elaine provided technical advice for The Deadly Dog Show and editing for all of his books.


Connect with Jerold:
Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter

Featured Author: Victoria Klahr

About the book:

Seth is back. 

When he walked back into my life, it almost felt like the pieces of my broken heart could be fixed. I thought we could go back to being best friends, but then I started to feel what I had been blocking out for years. I tried. Boy, did I try! But once I started to let him in, I wanted nothing more than to cross that line from friendship into something more . . . 



Just when I think I can move on and let myself be happy, an ugly reminder from my past comes storming in and threatens to destroy the sliver of hope that’s been growing since Seth came back.



Do I even deserve to be loved? 



“I’m not asking to fix your heart. I’m not asking to mend you. I love each and every shattered piece of you. I’m asking that you let me love you. Let me love each piece of your broken heart, and I swear to you I will make up for every heartache you have ever experienced.”



I came back for Josie. 



I knew I’d have to fight for her, but with the loss of her dad and the truth about what happened with her and Blake, I quickly realized that making her mine was going to be a lot harder than I first thought. The problem is, I can’t pretend like she’s just my best friend. I can’t pretend I don’t want more. 



I’m willing to do anything to get her to admit she has the same passionate feelings for me, because I know once she opens up and stops lying to herself, I can show her what it really means to be loved. It’s a battle of wills, but my love for her is stronger than her will to stop me.



So I fight for her. I fight because I know she deserves it.

Excerpt from That's a Lie

I was instantly distracted as I walked into the space. Seth. Shirtless. I don't think I need to explain my lack of focus. Or the drool. 

"You lied to me," he said gruffly, sitting on the barstool at my counter. His blond hair flopped in front of his eyes, and my hands itched to push it back. Touching him again the way I wanted to would satisfy only a millimeter of the need I have, but it would relieve some of the pain. I turned around to hide my thoughts.

"Ugh . . . I need coffee," I said vacantly, reaching for my coffee maker. I didn't even hear Seth move, but his hand grabbed mine and he turned me around, placing his hands beside me on the countertop to trap me. My breath caught, and I was positive he could hear my heart pounding in my chest.

His blue-green eyes screamed hurt and anger, but I didn't even care about him being mad. All that mattered was the charge that thumped between us. I was very aware of him.
"You lied, Josie. You're not supposed to lie to me."

"Seth . . . Come on," I said, turning my face away, unable to look at the raw emotion in his expression. His hand dashed out and grabbed my chin.

"How long, Josie?" he asked. I closed my eyes, not wanting to admit anything. "Open your damn eyes, Jos. Stop fu*#ing hiding." His voice was hard, but it was also full of desperation. I opened my eyes and narrowed them at him.

He didn’t understand that I needed to keep him away from me. My life is tainted by darkness, and he doesn't need that. Yes, I lied to the one person who I said I wouldn't deceive again, but it was for his own good!

"It doesn't matter, Seth. I'm fine."

"Like fu*#ing hell it doesn't matter. I haven't heard you scream like that since your nightmares after you were raped!"

The haunting reminder brought back vivid memories of that time. He or one of my dads would come lay with me to help me fall asleep. Every day that Seth wasn't in school, he was there with me, trying to make the nightmares go away.

"Since the engagement party," I whispered, looking down. I don't know why I admitted it, but I think part of me realized I couldn't hold on to all this pain anymore.

That's when my resolve started to break. How long could I go on fighting the feelings that I have for Seth? How long could I act like nothing hurts me?

"Fu*#, Jos . . . ," he whispered back, placing his forehead against mine. His signature smell of hay and apple pie drifted around me, and I almost lost my footing from wanting him so bad. "You should have told me."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"I worry about you every second you're not with me, Pussycat. Every second that you hide behind that wall you've built, I wonder when you're going to crack." His hand reached up to caress my face, and I leaned into his touch. It was only an infinitesimal movement, but I still heard Seth's breath hitch. My lapse in self-control made him bold. He brought his mouth to the side of mine, and kissed me. I couldn't stop the whimper before it escaped my mouth.

"There you are," he whispered hoarsely against my lips, always seeing me, even when I didn’t want him to. I wanted to bask in the moment, but I had already opened up to him too much. I pushed through his barricade and ran back to my room.

"I've got to help Dad at the garage today," I threw out as an explanation, and then I went to hide in my shower.

About the author:

Victoria Klahr (pronounced “Claire”) lives in Elizabeth City, North Carolina with her husband and daughter, Stephen and Alexis. She loves her chug (Pug/Chihuahua), Bandit, and daughter to pieces. She is a huge and proud book nerd who looks at her bookshelf in admiration daily. When she’s not daydreaming about book boyfriends and fantasizing about being a badass heroine like Rose Hathaway, she’s busy doing schoolwork for her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and writing the stories that speak to her in her head. She loves peanut butter with Oreos, good friends, amazing gossip, driving in the middle of merge lanes, comedies, crude humor, pretending like she can dance, pretending like she can kick major ass, and a really, really good laugh.

Connect with Victoria:
Blog  |  Facebook  |  Goodreads

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Featured Author: John Forelli

About the book

When Ray Ality arrives for a job interview at Simulations Inc. he's immediately drawn to Delilah, the cute receptionist. Only one problem: she's engaged.

Ray soon concocts a plan to win Delilah over, as he and his new eccentric coworker Bob use the company's software in an attempt to simulate the process of courting her. Ray soon discovers that the simulations aren't exactly what he expected, and as he sinks deeper into virtual reality it becomes harder to distinguish real life from the imaginary.
This novel is Office Space meets The Matrix--an existential discourse told among keyboards and cubicles.

Interview with John Forelli

John, what's the story behind the title of your The Simulations?
It's pretty simple. The main character uses the computer game "The Sims" in order to simulate courting a woman he works with.

Where's home for you?
Philadelphia. Land of Yeungling and cheesesteaks.

Where did you grow up?
South Jersey. A little town called Somerdale.


What's the dumbest purchase you've ever made?
That last shot of Jameson Saturday night.


What's the most valuable thing you've learned?
That nothing worth learning can ever be taught.

Who would you pick to write your biography?
Either Khalil Gibran or Jonathan Nolan. If you've never read The Prophet, go do it right now (after you've bought my book). It'll take less than an hour and change your life.

What dumb things did you do during your college years?
Jenn, that one night. 



Have you been in any natural disasters?
Only if my fifth grade haircut counts.

I'll count it. What is the most daring thing you've done (besides get that fifth grad haircut)?
Walked up to a woman at a bar and bet her I could get her to kiss me in less than a minute. 


Well, who won? We both did.

What is the stupidest thing you've ever done?
Hopefully not deciding to do this interview.

What's one thing that you wish you knew as a teenager that you know now?
This quote by Oscar Wilde: “You'll care less about what other people think when you realize how seldom they do.”


What makes you bored?
People who talk when they have nothing to say. 


What choices in life would you like to have a redo on?
None. Our “mistakes” make us the people we are just as much as our successes, and if you're happy in the present (which I am), there's never any reason for regret.

If someone gave you $5,000 and said you must solve a problem, what would you do with the money?
Hire someone to frame Donald Trump for murder. 

I’m not sure $5,000 would do it, but it would be worth a try.

What makes you nervous?
Ruben Amaro's continued employment as General Manager of the Phillies. 


What makes you happy?
The thought of Ruben Amaro's firing from the Phillies.

Yikes. I take it you’re a Phillies fan. Who else are you?
I ask myself this all the time. When I find out I'll let you know.

How did you meet your spouse?
I'm not married. God help the poor woman who ends up being the answer to this question.
She would definitely have to have a sense of humor.

Would you rather be a lonely genius, or a sociable idiot?
Lonely genius, without a doubt. I'd rather have tremendous insights into the wonder and beauty of the world and be unable to share it with anyone than have friends but be oblivious to it all.

What's one of your favorite quotes?
“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” -Lincoln

If you could live anywhere in the world, where in the world would it be?
Next to Kate Upton, wherever she is.

What would you like people to say about you after you die?
Like George Costanza, I don't want to be remembered. I want to be forgotten.

What's your favorite line from a book?
“It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.”
-Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Well, that's several lines, but okay. Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
The character “Bob” is inspired by my high-school friend Bob. Inspired is actually understating it. They're practically the same person.

One of your characters has just found out you're about to kill him off. He/she decides to beat you to the punch. How would he kill you?
Tell me the Eagles won't win a Super Bowl before I die. I'd commit suicide in an instant.

With what five real people would you most like to be stuck in a bookstore?
Ernest Hemingway, Jesus, Christopher Nolan, Buddha, and Kate Upton.

Who are your favorite authors?
Hemingway, Khalil Gibran, and Ayn Rand.


What book are you currently reading and in what format (e-book/paperback/hardcover)?
Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller.



About the author

John began writing when he was 7 years old and needed to forge a note to get him out of detention. The quality of his writing has only gone downhill from there.

John lives in Philadelphia, and when he's not yelling barely comprehensible obscenities at young children, he's probably eating a cheesesteak.

Connect with John:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  |

Featured Author: Graydon Miller

ABOUT THE BOOK

What is happening to the indigenous children in Veracruz?

Nobody knows why they are disappearing, and nobody really cares. Then Peter Vandervoort, a foreigner living in Mexico, snaps a picture of the wrong man in the wrong place and stumbles into a nightmare. He alone will uncover the horrifying truth about what’s happening to the children. When he meets a sex-starved French journalist trying to salvage her career, it’s hate at first sight. But each holds a piece of the puzzle that will save the children and ignite a passion as steamy as it is volatile . 
. . Open this book and you, too, will become a Hostage of Veracruz.

INTERVIEW WITH GRAYDON MILLER


Grady, what’s the story behind the title Hostages of Veracruz?
The story behind the title of my thriller is so convoluted. The Hostages of Veracruz was the title of the novel, originally written when I was living in Mexico in the 90s. When I translated it into English and printed a limited edition when self-publishing was truly self-publishing, I retitled it Outsourcing. It seemed a great American title in 2003. Fast forward to 2014: The Hostages of Veracruz was finally published in paperback.

This is your first thriller?
Yes, it is. And my lifelong obsession with Hitchcock has finally borne fruit. I was tickled pink by one of the reviews on Amazon. It singled out my “Hitchcockian approach to setting up a scene using luscious descriptions then suddenly, gently, inserting an unexpected word or phrase that slams the reader into a ‘Oh, God-what’s-gonna-happen-next? Direction....” S.R. Mallery said that.

That's a great review. What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?
The best complement about Hostages of Veracruz was “It was so disturbing, I had to put it down,” closely followed by this remark, “I was twenty pages into it before I realized my dinner was burning.”

You established yourself as a comic writer. Comments like these must be something new for you.
Amy, that’s for sure. After publishing a terrifying page turner, I’ve found there’s a certain joy in torturing readers. My preferred form or torture remains tickling.

Mine too. How did you create the plot for this book?
Bless my first wife. I was going off to teach an English class at the University of Guadalajara and left her with this short story that had a boffo, Hitchcock/Rod Sterling dark twist at the end. When I got home from my class, I expected to be showered with praise. My wife said, "There’s not enough here; there has to be more." That started me off on a long path, three more years, and things happened along the way. Like someone broke into our house and ripped off my printer. Eventually the short story turned into a novella.

How did you meet your wife? Was it love at first sight?
Downtown Guadalajara, waiting tables at her grandmother’s restaurant during Easter break. We didn’t begin dating till four years later. We kept running into each other. It was love at third sight.

Is your book based on real events?
The seed for the story came from an exposé I read the 90s in the Mexican news magazine Proceso. The story about organ trafficking was compelling but inconclusive. Here I saw this hairline crack in reality to insert fiction, which often can be the only route to the truth in certain regions. Like Latin America, Russia, and Los Angeles. In the course of writing, Hostages of Veracruz, I questioned a lot of doctors and health officials in Mexico. The bit about the boy who is dumped back in his village with corneas removed and twenty dollars in his pocket — that comes right out of my research. These intelligent people were evenly divided about whether the traffic existed. Sadly, since the 90s, the traffic may exist, but in a form much crasser than the villain of my story devised.

Wow. Are you like any of your characters?
Like Peter Vandervoort, a sort of wastrel with the soul of an artist. A strong woman brings out the hero in him. Funny how with Hostages of Veracruz, the reviewers detect what a word artist I am. Peter and I are vindicated.

How many years did you live in Mexico?
Like a good sitcom — Everybody Loves Raymond; Seinfeld — I lived in Mexico for nine years.

It must have affected your outlook.
Yes, I definitely have an émigré outlook. I see it with the vision of an outsider and insider. I know why the Germans love Death Valley and know that people in Italy pine to come to Hollywood, where I live.

So, after living abroad, where is home for you, Graydon?
Where I am. The heart can be many places, of course. I’d like to have a magical room with a work table and then when I open the door, I can step out to where the heart has been. Havana or Sun Valley or Watsonville or Guadalajara.

Where did you grow up?
In Watsonville, California. A farming town many have driven through, but few have stopped.

If you had an extra $100 a week to spend on yourself, what would you buy?
I’d get some cigars, after banking ten dollars. It’s the Scottish in me.


What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned?
Make as many mistakes as I can and evaluate them. Gosh, I wish somebody had taught me that as a kid or a teen. It’s what I talk about when I visit schools now and give talks. Risking new things and making mistakes gladly — it’s the quickest way to learn — and having fun. It’s very important to be able to enjoy yourself.

I make a lot of mistakes, few of them gladly, but you're right, they are learning experiences. You always seem to be having a very good time. What’s your secret?
To have a good time, give a good time.

What do you love about where you live?
I’m here in the middle of Hollywood in a cottage courtyard. And I’m deepest house in from the sidewalk. My first weekend here the quiet was deafening. There are doves cooing and an occasional possum and you can hear the clink of spoons from neighboring houses.



It sounds wonderful. Right now I can hear a lawn mower. Have you been in any natural disasters?
I have been in a man-made disaster, April 22, Guadalajara Mexico, 1992. Gasoline that had seeped into the street drains blew up eight kilometers of streets. SUVs catapulted onto the roofs of houses. A gymnasium became a morgue. Herds of people panicked and ran through the main streets, away from the explosion zone. I was there the night before. The zone smelled like gas at the pump. We thought it was because subway construction was going on. The why of the disaster has never been adequately answered: corruption, negligence, an accident, who knows? I know one thing: when I smell gas or just suspect it now I call the gas company.

Excellent advice. Do you have another job outside of writing?
I manage Star Wash in West Hollywood. It’s quite a job. Because I am a well-known figure in the neighborhood, I feel a lot like Floyd the barber on Andy Griffith, who never gave a haircut. There’s a lot of gabbing at the laundromat and not much mopping.

What would you like people to say about you after you die?
There was a class act who died laughing with his boots on. There’d be no finer tribute to my life. Death is the great MacGuffin. Baruch Spinoza said “A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.” I love that.

Who are your favorite authors?

Oooh, that’s a tough one. There are so many. If I had to say, my favorite author is Graydon Miller.

And me of course, right? What are you currently reading?
S.R. Mallery’s Tales to Count On, in Kindle. I’m enjoying myself immensely and Mallery has the Hitchcock touch, especially a talent for the final twist of the knife found in the Hitchcock magazine stories. I give equal weight to the man’s films as an influence and also his magazine stories. I was eating up those devious stories by the end of high school that combine elements dark, desperate and humorous. So many great authors, Ed Hoch, Henry Slesar, Ray Bradbury, Donald Westlake.

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?
Truly anywhere. In the car and in a café, though the café is getting harder as I am becoming more known. My house is a good place. Sometimes at my house when I’m really into it, to stretch my body and get off the chair I find myself on my knees before the computer. There may be something symbolic in that as well. Larry Gelbart, the TV comedy writer, planted the seed in me that the wee small hours are a good time to write. There’s one novel I nicknamed my “3 a.m. novel.” I switch my routine as circumstances change, and through the madness always manage to find a metabolism.

Where is your favorite library, and what do you love about it?
Beverly Hills Public Library. It’s a church for books, attended by students, indigents and millionaires alike. It’s big enough you can find about anything that pops into your head and you can wander around and make random discoveries. Second favorite is the new library in my hometown. It’s a beauty and a lifeline for submitting my humor pieces. I can’t tell you what a cruel irony it was during the lean years when the city hall and library shut down for three weeks during Christmas. These are happier times when I visit Watsonville.

You can be any fictional character for one day. Who would you be?
Vito Corleone from the book, rather than the movie. I know this man, his cult of family and loyalty to friends. The extortion and the other stuff is beside the point.

Very interesting choice. I might ask who's the first person you would kill as Vito, but I won't put you on the spot. What’s the worst thing someone has said about your writing?
I sent my first book of short stories to Gary Fisketjon, an editor. He sent back a letter saying essentially he wasn’t interested in this or my future body of work.

Ouch. But you showed him! Are you happy with your decision to self-publish?
Delighted to be a publishing maverick. Period. Just as there’s room for paperbacks and Kindle books, there’s room for self-publishing and traditional fear-based publishing. We self-publishers are the brave and the fearless. I already see a world where there’s no more stigma attached to being self-published than being a self-made millionaire.

Amen! I like that world. What are you working on now?
Being the best Graydon Miller in the world.

Book trailer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graydon Miller grew up in the heart of Steinbeck Country on the Central California coast. More Bombeck than Steinbeck, Graydon Miller has been compared to T.C. Boyle, Joel Stein, and Voltaire. He briefly attended Columbia University in New York and came to Los Angeles to study filmmaking, but discovered literature instead, in T.C. Boyle’s fiction writing workshop at USC. In addition to A Very Grady Christmas, he has written the funny diet book, Lighten Up Now: The Grady Diet and the humor collection, Late Bloomer. His humor column, "Miller Time," appears weekly in The Canyon News.

Connect with Grady:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  

Other books by Grady Miller

Featured Author: Susan M. Boyer

About the book

Where is Kent Heyward? The twenty-three-year-old heiress from one of Charleston’s oldest families vanished a month ago. When her father hires private investigator Liz Talbot, Liz suspects the most difficult part of her job will be convincing the patriarch his daughter tired of his overbearing nature and left town. That’s what the Charleston Police Department believes.

But behind the garden walls South of Broad, family secrets pop up like weeds in the azaleas. The neighbors recollect violent arguments between Kent and her parents. Eccentric twin uncles and a gaggle of cousins covet the family fortune. And the lingering spirit of a Civil-War-era debutante may know something if Colleen, Liz’s dead best friend, can get her to talk.

Liz juggles her case, the partner she’s in love with, and the family she adores. But the closer she gets to what has become of Kent, the closer Liz dances to her own grave.

Interview with Susan Boyer

Susan, do you have another job outside of writing?
No, I have the luxury of focusing on my writing and the business aspects of being an author. I have so much admiration for those who do have other jobs. I don’t know how they do it all.

I agree. Which character did you most enjoy writing?
Liz for sure, but Colleen, her best friend who’s been dead since their junior year in high school, would be a close second.

What would your main character say about you?
I should exercise more.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
My characters aren’t based on real people, but I do use snippets of conversation, mannerisms, and things that people do. I mix characteristics from several people, often strangers, into one character.

Is your book based on real events?
No, it’s entirely fiction. A few real events are mentioned—like the well-documented ghost sightings at Poogan’s Porch, for example. But none of them are central to the story.

Are you like any of your characters?
Liz Talbot has a lot of me in her. She sees the world through my eyes. We’re both Southern, we both love Southern food, Kenny Chesney music, and karaoke. But she is younger, thinner, braver, and thinks of what she wants to say much faster than me.

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?
Either in my office at home or in a hotel room. I write in the mornings and as long into the afternoon or evening as I’m able.

Where’s home for you?
Greenville, South Carolina.

You’re given the day off, and you can do anything but write. What would you do?
Read in a chair on the beach, then have lunch at a beachfront restaurant. I’d probably order a cheeseburger. Then more reading in the beach chair in the afternoon.

What’s your favorite candy bar?
Do truffles count? Absolutely! I love Lindor truffles. My three favorites are milk chocolate, hazelnut, and peanut butter. It’s odd, because Liz loves Dove Dark Chocolate Promises, but I need the truffles to write her.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Spend time with family, travel—I especially love St. John, USVI—read, watch a few favorite TV shows. I’m really going to miss Justified. This is the last season.

I love that show! If I could live anywhere, I'd probably pick South Carolina. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? I’m happy where we are, in Greenville, South Carolina. There are many beautiful places I’d love to visit, but I couldn’t stay because we’d be too far away from our family.

What are you working on now?
Lowcountry Bordello, the fourth Liz Talbot mystery, which comes out in November.

 About the author

Susan M. Boyer is the author of the USA TODAY bestselling Liz Talbot mystery series. Her debut novel, Lowcountry Boil, won the 2012 Agatha Award for Best First Novel, the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, and garnered several other award nominations. Lowcountry Boneyard, the third Liz Talbot mystery, was released April 21, 2015. Susan loves beaches, Southern food, and small towns where everyone knows everyone, and everyone has crazy relatives. You’ll find all of the above in her novels.

Susan lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with her husband and an inordinate number of houseplants.

Connect with Susan:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Pinterest  |  Goodreads



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Featured Author: Melanie Denman

About the book

Set in the Bible Belt of Deep East Texas, Visiting the Sins is a darkly funny story about mothers and daughters, naked ambition, elusive redemption, and all the torment it's possible to inflict in the name of family.



Down through the decades, the lofty social aspirations of the feisty but perennially dissatisfied Wheeler women -- Pokey, the love-starved, pistol-packing matriarch; Rebanelle, the frosty former beauty queen turned church organist; and Curtis Jean, the backsliding gospel singer -- are exceeded only by their unfortunate taste in men and a seemingly boundless capacity for holding grudges. A legacy of feuding and scandal lurches from one generation to the next with tragic consequences that threaten to destroy everything the Wheeler women have sacrificed their souls to build.

Interview with Melanie Denman

Melanie, what’s the story behind the title Visiting the Sins?
The title is a little bit ironic in that we usually quote the Bible when we talk about “visiting the sins” of the fathers upon the children. My book is actually about the sins of the mothers, and the title is taken from a line in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up on a cattle ranch near Nacogdoches, Texas. I’m an eighth-generation Texan, so those roots run pretty deep.

If you had an extra $100 a week to spend on yourself, what would you buy?
I would buy good seats at the theatre. I used to act in live theatre, and I’m still captivated by watching it.

What’s the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made?
I bought a beautiful pair of black patent pumps with four-inch heels. My hat is off to Sarah Jessica Parker for making it look easy to walk in those things, but I never wore them outside the house.

I'm with you! What makes you bored?
Listening to people talk about their money or what they’re going to buy next.

What choices in life would you like to have a redo on?
There are things I regret doing because they hurt other people, but I don’t think I would choose to change anything. I think things turned out the way they were supposed to turn out.

What makes you excited?
I get really excited when I’m getting packed for a vacation to somewhere I haven’t been before. The anticipation is almost as much fun as the trip itself.

How did you meet your husband?
I met him at a swimming party on the first day of our freshman year at college. I thought he was terribly cute, but I don’t know if it was love at first sight because I didn’t marry him until twenty-five years later!

Oh my! What’s one of your favorite quotes?
I don’t know who said this, but I like it: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re the cheetah or the gazelle. When the sun comes up you’d better be ready to run.”

Love it! If you could live anywhere in the world, where in the world would it be?
I would live in an Airstream trailer park on the beach with my family. I’ve reached a place in my life where time with the people I love is the most important thing.

What’s your favorite line from a book?
I love Gus’s line in Lonesome Dove when the pretty young prostitute accuses him of cheating at cards to get a free roll in the hay with her: “A man who wouldn’t cheat for a poke don’t want one bad enough.”

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
The character named Pokey, the love-starved matriarch, is loosely based upon my late grandmother. She was a feisty, fearless woman who had enough adventures and misadventures to fill several novels. I was lucky to have her in my life.

Are you like any of your characters?
I think I’m like all of my characters in different ways. For example, Pokey is always seeking the spotlight, which is the opposite of my own personality. But I do identify with her unbridled ambition. Actually, I believe you have to find some common ground with even the most despicable character in order to write authentically about him or her.

True. What book are you currently reading and in what format (e-book/paperback/hardcover)?
I know this is old-fashioned, but I still prefer to hold an actual book in my hands, usually a paperback. I love to gaze at the cover and flip back and forth through the pages. I just finished reading Ruby by a fellow East Texas native, Cynthia Bond. Now I’m deep into The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

Are you happy with your decision to self-publish? Tell us a little bit about your road to publication.
I self-published because the authors I knew who were traditionally published were getting very little support from their publishers. They were doing practically all the promotional work and giving up much of the revenue. I strongly believed that I had written the story I was meant to write, so I just decided I was willing to bet my own money on it. I was willing to work hard to promote it. If it bombed then nobody would be out any money except for me. Fortunately for me, it didn’t bomb, and I have given away almost all of the profits to causes that matter to me.

What are you working on now?
I’m in the process of adapting Visiting the Sins into a screenplay, and also working on a new novel. Like Visiting the Sins, this one is also set in East Texas, but it is about the relationship between people and their land, and it features strong male and female personalities.

About the author

Melanie Denman is a native of Nacogdoches, Texas and a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University. An eighth-generation Texan, and a former banker and cattle rancher, she currently lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is working on a second novel.

Connect with Melanie:
Website  |  Facebook 

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